Photography engaged in the USA during the Great Depression | The art of photography | lecture

Socially engaged photography can be both an important document and a moving work of art. An excellent example of this combination are the photographs taken in the USA by photographers working for the Farm Security Administration. Stanisław Jasiński will talk about this extraordinary collection and its authors during his lecture “Socially engaged photography in the USA during the Great Depression.” We invite you to the next meeting in the “Art of Photography” series on Wednesday, January 7, 2026, at 5:00 p.m.

The early 1930s in the USA were a time of great crisis. Entire families lost their livelihoods and homes, and industrial plants and stores went bankrupt. In 1937, the Farm Security Administration commissioned a group of photographers to document the social effects of the crisis, as well as the progress made by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt with his reforms known as the “New Deal.” The Farm Security Administration collection consists of approximately 40,000 photographs taken in the 1930s and 1940s by American authors, including Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Walker Evans, and Russell Lee. The photographs were commissioned primarily to document government activities. However, most of them are artistic photographs in which the sensitivity of the author gives them the character of a timeless reflection on humanity.

The lecture from the series “The Art of Photography” will be given by Stanisław Jasiński – photographer and photography instructor, member of the Association of Polish Art Photographers. He is an expert on the history of photography and a collector of antique cameras and other artifacts related to this field of art.